For a prominent world leader, Vladimir Putin is something of a mystery.
Aside from his longstanding position of authority in Russia, not much is known about the real
Putin, and that extends to his eating habits.
Here's what we do know.
For centuries, every leader who's been worried about their safety has employed somebody to
taste or test the food they eat to safeguard against assassination.
Roman emperors did it.
Dictators have done it.
Even a president or two has done it.
"Come on!
Relax!
What's the worst he could do?"
"Feed us poison!"
"I think you're being a bit paranoid."
No surprise, then, that Putin's got a food taster, too.
Everything placed in front of the Russian president has been tried and tested by someone
whose job it is to take a hit should someone decide to spark a third World War by killing
him.
As Putin's actions have become more and more controversial over the last few years, this
isn't so much paranoia as it is a sensible matter of safety.
According to Anya von Bremzen, a contributor to Food and Wine, Russians of the Soviet generation
adore ice cream.
She says,
"We all ate it in winter, even though our parents forbade it because of the cold."
That seems to extend to Putin, too.
Time and again, ice cream, specifically, pistachio ice cream, has topped the list of his favorite
foods.
Putin has treated other world leaders to ice cream during public appearances and even gifted
it to Chinese President Xi Jinping, which, according to Russia Today led to Russian ice
cream craze in China.
Putin's actual eating habits are a little hard to get a firm grasp on, since the reports
about them are not entirely verifiable.
For example, we're told that Putin likes to eat healthy food, including tomatoes, cucumbers
and lettuce, and avoids sweets.
He prefers fish, but his favorite meat is mutton.
All that information comes from the former official newspaper of the Soviet Communist
Party, Pravda, which was itself reporting on Putin's own words.
"It just seems so hard to believe."
How can he prefer fish when his favorite meat is mutton?
What kind of list is "tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce"?
Does he really avoid sweets, considering how much he loves ice cream?
Perhaps the only halfway convincing fact in Pravda's report is that, according to his
then-wife, Putin believed women must do all the work in the home and that they shouldn't
be praised so as not to spoil them.
It's always fascinating to learn the morning habits of various world leaders.
Pope Francis begins the day before dawn and eats a simple breakfast after prayers.
President Trump doesn't eat breakfast at all.
And Putin begins his day quite leisurely indeed.
He wakes up late enough that breakfast is usually served at noon.
On the menu tends to be a large omelette or a bowl of porridge, with quail eggs and a
glass of fruit juice on the side.
Putin is also partial to a cup of coffee in the morning, right after breakfast.
Of course, his is served to him, and there are courtiers involved, so it's not entirely
regular Joe stuff.
But he has shown up at an actual coffee shop from time to time.
Shortly after his coffee, he'll keep his job waiting just a bit longer while he spends
some time in the gym and watches the news.
Putin also sometimes likes to eat steaks for breakfast, according to a display for the
media RT broadcast in 2015.
The Russian President took a trip to the gym with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, before
retiring to grill some steaks.
The video was released shortly after a dip in Putin's ratings, so it was likely more
photo op than typical meal.
According to Putin himself, he enjoys trying local cuisine when he's traveling and will
eat fruit and drink kefir, a type of fermented milk, when he can.
Otherwise, he tends not to eat in the afternoon at all, and often skips dinner because of
his busy schedule.
Kefir, funnily enough, is one of the few things that does seem to keep cropping up in varying
reports on Putin's diet.
The yogurt-like drink has been spotted in media appearances and, according to his now
ex-wife Lyudmila Putina, the way to get Vladimir to listen to her was to wait at home with
a glass of it on the kitchen table, ready and waiting.
The first president of post-Soviet Russia, Boris Yeltsin, was a notorious drinker, to
the point of embarrassment at times.
This, as well as stereotypes about Russians and drinking, are most likely the reasons
for Putin's aversion to alcohol.
Some reports claim that he only drinks at formal receptions, while others suggest that
Putin does like a drink every now and then.
Some stories claim German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Putin send each other German beer
on the regular.
"Beer me, bitter!"
"Here you go."
"As they say in Ferris Bueller, danke schoen."
Don't expect to see him downing vodka anytime soon, though, no matter what the stereotypes
may say.
The alcoholism epidemic in Russia is fueled by the stuff, to the extent that the Moscow
Times described it as "Putin's worst enemy."
A good way to get a grasp of what sort of thing Putin might eat on more formal occasions
is to take a look at some of the menus from previous events and dinners.
During a lunch at Podvorye, a restaurant in St. Petersburg, he ate fish soup, followed
by cold cuts, smoked sturgeon with lemon and butter, then a range of desserts.
At a 2008 dinner between him and then-U.S. President George W. Bush, the two leaders
dined on venison filet with marinated mushrooms, veal tenderloin with baked potato, salmon
and crab coulibiac and, finally, berry pie with ice cream.
At another dinner meeting between Putin and Bush in 2006, they ate a salad of tomatoes
with 50-year-old balsamic vinegar, crawfish with gooseberry marmalade, oladi with caviar,
whitefish, steak and strawberry ice cream.
So while Russia may be known as a country of austere simplicity and Putin may project
an image of tough-guy relatability, the guy's not afraid to live in luxury sometimes.
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